Why does Baalke seem get a free pass from serious criticism?

I don't know. Aldon Smith is a disaster and that is regarded as one of his best picks. 2012 was completely lost. Kaep is a running QB with no pocket presense. A great athlete who is tall, big and strong and super fast legs. But he can't make a read to save his life. He has no idea what he is seeing out there. Upside yeah. Rare athletic skills sure. But he is a tad bit overrated on the WZ IMO. There are probably 15 QB's who can get just as far as him in the NFL. This thing is driven by defense, O line, running game. Alex Smith on his same team at the time proved it. He got the NFC Championship. He would have gotten to the Super Bowl if Kyle Williams didn't fumble twice. This ship is not QB driven.

Compare the players we've gotten the past few years to other teams and I'll bet were doing pretty well. The draft ain't exactly an easy thing to do. Consider the fact that there are people in this game who have forgotten more about football than most of us will ever know who screw up the draft all the time. Al Davis for example. R.I.P.

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
I don't know. Aldon Smith is a disaster and that is regarded as one of his best picks. 2012 was completely lost. Kaep is a running QB with no pocket presense. A great athlete who is tall, big and strong and super fast legs. But he can't make a read to save his life. He has no idea what he is seeing out there. Upside yeah. Rare athletic skills sure. But he is a tad bit overrated on the WZ IMO. There are probably 15 QB's who can get just as far as him in the NFL. This thing is driven by defense, O line, running game. Alex Smith on his same team at the time proved it. He got the NFC Championship. He would have gotten to the Super Bowl if Kyle Williams didn't fumble twice. This ship is not QB driven.

You must be a delight at parties

I'm am the life of the party always......

I can't deny the Kyle Williams fumbles. Kaep, however, aided in winning an NFC championship, damn near, besides the team's mistakes, won the Super Bowl. The following year, he damn near got us, besides his horrid mistakes, back to the Super Bowl.

*Kap

Arguing the merits of Kap's play is one thing. But Harbaugh wanted Kap and Baalke wanted Dalton.

I don't know. Aldon Smith is a disaster and that is regarded as one of his best picks. 2012 was completely lost. Kaep is a running QB with no pocket presense. A great athlete who is tall, big and strong and super fast legs. But he can't make a read to save his life. He has no idea what he is seeing out there. Upside yeah. Rare athletic skills sure. But he is a tad bit overrated on the WZ IMO. There are probably 15 QB's who can get just as far as him in the NFL. This thing is driven by defense, O line, running game. Alex Smith on his same team at the time proved it. He got the NFC Championship. He would have gotten to the Super Bowl if Kyle Williams didn't fumble twice. This ship is not QB driven.

You must be a delight at parties

I'm am the life of the party always......

I can't deny the Kyle Williams fumbles. Kaep, however, aided in winning an NFC championship, damn near, besides the team's mistakes, won the Super Bowl. The following year, he damn near got us, besides his horrid mistakes, back to the Super Bowl.

*Kap

Arguing the merits of Kap's play is one thing. But Harbaugh wanted Kap and Baalke wanted Dalton.

Originally posted by Niners99:
Did it hurt when you pulled that statement out of your butt?

Maybe I misunderstood how much Baalke wanted Dalton (I don't really think it's a stretch), but

"Jim fought for drafting Kaepernick,'' Dilfer said. "They could have had [Andy] Dalton [who went 35th to Cincinnati, one spot ahead of where the 49ers traded up to]. Everybody wanted Dalton except him. [49ers general manager Trent] Baalke threw him a bone because it was his first year. Kaepernick was his guy. He went and worked him out, he thought he found him, and he swears to this day the only reason Kaepernick went that high was because of the momentum generated because of him. That's his guy."

Originally posted by Robert:
If we take a look at Baalke's drafts 2010-2013, the trend is disturbing to say the least.

As it stands now, 2010 was his best draft in terms of long term contribution to the team (Bowman was a great pick; A Davis a gutsy good call, Iupati was an obvious but still good pick).

2011 looked epic before the recent run of legal trouble. A Smith may well have played his last game in a niner uniform. Kaep was a great pick, but everything I have read says that credit for that pick should really go to Harbaugh. Culliver and Hunter likely will be playing in other uniforms after this year. Miller is the only pick that has worked out.

The 2012 draft was THE WORST in the NFL that year. After James is cut / released, we will have zero players on our roster this year from the 2012 draft. That is pretty much unheard of. Yet…crickets…

In 2013, for all the firepower we had, we got one starting safety with concussion issues. The rest are all question marks including a couple of wildcards coming off injury.

Yet, I don't hear a chorus calling for Baalke's head in the media or from fans? Why? This team has been a quality corner or speedy wide receiver from winning the Lombardi for 3 years. Baalke has failed to deliver either, yet all I hear about is how Harbaugh, stuck with the same aging base of players year after year, is supposed to miraculous will his team Superbowl if he wants to get an extension, when Baalke has failed to refresh the talent of this team year after year, despite having ample opportunity to do so.

Where's the criticism? Where's the pitchforks? Why does Baalke get a pass year after year? What am I missing?

The criticism? He's been one of the best talent evaluators in the NFL. Ozzie Newsome has blown three or four whole drafts....nobody is calling for his head. I think fans have an absurd, bordering on retarded/special needs expectation of success in the draft. It is and always has been a crapshoot, teams will basically miss more than they hit. Good GM's are lucky to hit on 50% of their picks. Good GM's will blow entire draft's from time to time, it just happens, its a reality of prospecting. Baalke has picked up potential HOF caliber players, added tons of depth to this team, quality role-players and people are still crying.

This isn't Madden football, drafting players is a very, extremely inexact science and the best tend to fail routinely. Bill Walsh made some TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE picks in his time. The key is, can you consistently add impact players throughout the years? Looking at Iupati, Davis, Bowman, Aldon Smith, Bruce Miller, Brock, Reid....etc.....the answer with Baalke is clearly yes.

Find me someone that has had a better track record than Baalke since 2010 and let's go from there, because from what I see, every top GM in the NFL has had some big mistakes and error prone picks. It happens. Also the notion that Baalke gets blamed for off the field stuff is absurd. I'd say 90% of this forum was POed when he drafted Aldon who has looked like a future HOF up to this point. People need to get off his back.

I don't know. Aldon Smith is a disaster and that is regarded as one of his best picks. 2012 was completely lost. Kaep is a running QB with no pocket presense. A great athlete who is tall, big and strong and super fast legs. But he can't make a read to save his life. He has no idea what he is seeing out there. Upside yeah. Rare athletic skills sure. But he is a tad bit overrated on the WZ IMO. There are probably 15 QB's who can get just as far as him in the NFL. This thing is driven by defense, O line, running game. Alex Smith on his same team at the time proved it. He got the NFC Championship. He would have gotten to the Super Bowl if Kyle Williams didn't fumble twice. This ship is not QB driven.

Someone needs to fire Baalke AND Harbaugh because they are ruining the 49ers. The window is closing and they can't do a thing to stop it, they just stand there and watch as the team falls apart, players do stupid things and bring shame to the organization, and the biggest joke in the history of the NFL goes on to win a Superbowl.

The fact that Pete Carroll won a Superbowl before Harbaugh, who had a better team, is reason enough to fire all of them. Harbaugh will never win anything. He was a hack in the NCAA and he's a hack in the NFL too. He never even won a national championship, never even won a Pac-10/Pac-12 championship.

Originally posted by Disp:
What team has drafted more quality impact players from 2010-2014? Possibly Seattle? Who else?

It's really down to Seattle and the 49ers. The difference is that their fans routinely praise their GM for the good work he's done and ignore the mistakes and missteps while ours b***h, moan, cry and whine about everything under the sun.

Originally posted by RogerCraigsUncle:
Someone needs to fire Baalke AND Harbaugh because they are ruining the 49ers. The window is closing and they can't do a thing to stop it, they just stand there and watch as the team falls apart, players do stupid things and bring shame to the organization, and the biggest joke in the history of the NFL goes on to win a Superbowl.

The fact that Pete Carroll won a Superbowl before Harbaugh, who had a better team, is reason enough to fire all of them. Harbaugh will never win anything. He was a hack in the NCAA and he's a hack in the NFL too. He never even won a national championship, never even won a Pac-10/Pac-12 championship.

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